HTC’s Future Under Google Signals a Shift Away From Smartphones

When HTC brought back founder Cher Wang two years ago to turn around the struggling Taiwanese mobile phone maker, investors hoped she could stem a sharp loss in market share to Apple and Samsung Electronics.

But the gamble to rebuild the early smartphone pioneer’s reputation failed, as its market share has continued to dwindle—to below 1% from closer to 10% in 2011.

On Thursday, Wang announced HTC was shifting around 2,000 staff, mainly handset engineers, to Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL, +0.02%) in a $1.1 billion deal that casts doubts over the company’s longer-term future.